


transparent answer

by aleeks



Category: giant barbie egg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 10:02:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleeks/pseuds/aleeks





	transparent answer

It’s 3:05, Monday, and Shintaro’s up on the rooftop again. He’s sitting on the handrails, watching the world move from underneath him, without him—watching people get out of their cars, talk to friends, walk alongside each other on the street. None of them know who he is. None of them know what he’s about to do.

None of them care.

It’s a liberating feeling.

He dangles his legs over the rails, watching… waiting. Waiting for what? He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, but it just doesn’t feel _right_ yet. It’s almost funny, how you can spend your entire life thinking it’s all wrong, and even when you’re handed an answer, a _solution_, it still doesn’t feel _right_ yet.

It’s frustrating, that’s what it is. To sit up here and want something so badly, and yet feel so strongly that it’s all _wrong_. That there’s _something else_. _What is it?_ he asks himself. _What is it?_

Maybe if he knew, he wouldn’t be sat up here, waiting for something and never getting it. Letting the moment pass him by. Letting the world pass him by.

Maybe the hole in his chest isn’t big enough yet.

Maybe he’s not ready yet.

Maybe he’ll never be ready.

That’s a strange concept. He’s always up here, but he never does anything. Maybe people think he just likes the view.

Maybe he does just like the view.

His phone buzzes, and it’s a text. From Momo.

_Roast chicken for dinner tonight!! Get home early and set the table or the wish-bone is my legal possession >:3_

Roast chicken for dinner tonight.

Maybe he won’t do it today.

Every day is the same. Nothing ever changes for Shintaro. It’s all so mind-numbingly boring. But it’s not like Shintaro minds. He doesn’t really care at all.

It’s almost like he’s trapped inside a glass box—all he does is watch. He watches people live their lives around him, without him. He knows they’re talking, but he can’t make out the words. And then they laugh at a punchline he can’t hear.

From the inside of his box, he catches glimpses of the outside world. Of people having fun. Of people falling in love. Of people struggling, choking, drowning. But he can’t do anything about it. He can’t interact with the world outside his box.

Sometimes his mum tells him about the house she sold, but he doesn’t really care. Sometimes his sister tells him about the cat she found, but he doesn’t really care. Sometimes his classmates tell him about how “god, this test is biting me in the ass,” but he doesn’t really care.

He can’t find it in him to care anymore.

School has never been a problem for him. Nothing has ever really been a problem for him. What’s the point if he already knows everything? He’s just got to sit inside that classroom and pretend he’s actually having fun? He’s just got to talk to those kids and pretend he’s not bored out of his mind? God.

Shintaro can faintly remember being a child, and, you know, liking things. Looking forward to things. Having a dream. Shit like that. When he was a child, he wanted to be… What did he want to be?

Hmm. That’s strange. Shintaro’s not a forgetter, but nothing’s coming to mind. Maybe his memory just doesn’t go back that far.

In the present, Tuesday morning, he gets last week’s test back. He looks at the mark—a smooth 100%—even though he knows he doesn’t have to. It’s always the same. It’s always 100% when it comes to Shintaro. And maybe he finds comfort in that familiarity, but it’s not like that grade tugs at his heart or anything. He doesn’t really feel anything at all. It’s just a number.

It’s really just a number.

It’s easy. The tests are easy. School is easy.

Life is easy.

“What did you get, Shintaro?” someone asks him. Her face is blurry, hazy, from inside the glass box. He can’t remember her name.

“The same.”

But he can see her face drop. He knows it, she knows it—it’s always the same.

Then the teacher rounds everybody up, and class is a-go. Shintaro stares out the window. He knows that it doesn’t matter whether he pays attention or not—he’ll know all the answers either way. It’s a bit boring, he supposes, which is probably why he always feels so hollow. There’s no “spice” in his life, but then again, it’s not like it really matters to him. He doesn’t need excitement or spice or whatever. He just needs to tire out his lifespan, reach the endgame, then vanish. Leave the way he entered. Make a mark or not, it won’t matter, anyway. He doesn’t get how some people are so hard-pressed on “making a difference.” Seems like a bit of a useless endeavour.

The lunch bell rings, and the class bursts into a frenzy of laughter and screaming. Shintaro opens his bento box—takes a momentary glance inside. Rice, battered fish, scrambled eggs. Someone’s decorated the seaweed to look like a cat’s face. It smells okay. Momo definitely made this one.

He doesn’t really feel like eating. His chest is hollow, yet somehow extremely full at the same time. He’s so sick of feeling like this; not being able to do anything, just because he’s so filled to the brim with absolutely nothing and also absolutely everything. After a while, he probably just decided to accept it—open his doors, let that feeling creep in and make itself comfy right next to his heart, guarding it. Sometimes he wallows it in—those days are fun. Lying on the ground, thinking about how pathetic and disgusting he is.

But some days it’s not that bad. Some days he just forgets how to eat. Today’s one of those days. The thought of food makes his stomach lurch; he throws it in the trash. There’s a note: _“Hope you have a nyamazing lunch!! :3”_ He throws that away, too. (Momo needs to stop doing that stupid three-mouth thing.)

Shintaro leans back in his chair. He’s now got 35 more minutes of lunch to spend uneaten; he takes himself up to the rooftop. Shintaro likes it up there. He usually finds some kind of unoccupied corner to sit, where he can just watch the world below him, alone. Others say it’s lonely or pitiful, but he thinks it’s rather peaceful. It’s time he can have to himself, without having to worry about putting up a face, or throwing out nasty words he knows he can never take back.

He peers over the handrails. Looks like there’s been a car crash. It’s funny—everyone always says car crashes are such a statistical anomaly, but he sees them all the time. Drunk driving, speeding, even just normal driving—something goes wrong, your car’s totalled, and you’re out about a few hundred-thousand yen.

Shintaro wonders how much shame a car crash victim would feel. You spend at least a few years perfecting the art of driving, you go get tested, you get a license, you’re driving steady—until one day it all slips past and you find yourself head-first in a devastating act of stupidity. Would you continue? Would you drive again? What’s the point? You’ve failed once, there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again. You’ll eventually wreck the car, you’ll have to buy a new one, and in due time you’ll wreck that one, too. So, really, there’s no point.

All those years gone to waste. Another useless endeavour. Just take the train.

He looks away from the crash and rips up his test.

The day crawls to an end. There’s a science assignment on the horizon, Kurosaki Mina’s holding a Halloween party at her place even though Halloween was about three months ago, and the clouds have moved about a metre since lunchtime. Shintaro packs up his things, some shit-faced classmate wishes him a good afternoon (he doesn’t humour them with a response), then he’s out of the classroom. His teacher might’ve said goodbye, too, whatever.

Then he walks home alone. Of course not completely alone—there’s always couples huddling together on the streets, crows flying ahead, cats crossing the road—but none of which that have any association with him. For all he cares, it’s just Shintaro and the winter air chilling his arms.

It’s about a ten-minute commute from home to school. Three roads, an avenue, a rich neighbour with a four-storey house, an old man shivering in front of the bus stop, a raccoon eating garbage. His mum always says she’d miss the raccoon if they ever had to move, but Shintaro doesn’t particularly give a shit. (Momo says she’d miss the old man, which is pretty fucking stupid, too.)

No one greets him when he opens the door. Looks like the house is empty: a huge relief. If Momo were home, she’d run up to him and go, “Hey, Shintaro, how was your day?” like a squeaky ball of helium, and Shintaro would go, “Leave me alone, Momo,” and Momo would pout and say, “God, you’re so cold! What happened to the Shintaro who would cry playing _The Floor Is Lava_?” and Shintaro would say, “Maybe he got sick of doing all your chores,” and he’d leave the conversation feeling at least 75% more tired.

His family is always telling him about how he used to be. About how he used to rush into the house, dirt on his feet, a huge smile on his face. About how he used to build pillow forts with Momo and stay in there until dinner. About how he used to draw huge sunflowers and stick them up on the fridge. About how he used to race his father down the hallways—about how you could hear both his and his father’s footsteps booming all throughout the house. About how he used to sit and huddle in with Momo on rainy days. About how he used to sing nursery rhymes to Momo when she felt down.

Usually his response to all that shit is: “Things change. Move on.” He can’t help that he’s changed. He doesn’t even fucking know how to _not_ change. Things are always changing, and Shintaro’s a thing, too. God, it tires him out just fucking thinking about it.

He trudges down the rear-end hallways, up to his room. There’s nothing special about his room, really. Just run of the mill teen: bed, clothes, door. The only thing he’s lacking is a few posters; Shintaro doesn’t hang up posters. They make him feel stupid. Posters means he’s gotta either buy them or print them. Put them on his wall. He doesn’t deserve interests. A bleak, white room suits him best.

Shintaro drops into a nap, dreamless—he’s not the kind of person who dreams—and awakes a few hours later to Momo shaking him up for dinner. He doesn’t go.

He just sleeps the rest of the night away.

Every day is the same.

But perhaps that’s not exactly the truth. Some days aren’t quite the same.

It happens every now and then. Shintaro wakes up, and he can already hear the whispering. _“You’re a cold-hearted bastard,”_ his alarm beeps in five-minute intervals. The walls tell each other he’s a worthless human being—the word spreads like high school gossip. It’s loud and it’s grating and he can’t get it to go away. And that’s the fucking problem—he’s not really hearing anything at all, because it’s all inside his head. He can’t block his ears—it’s always there, in the same volume, in his head.

It’s never long until everything in his room starts saying he’s a nuisance. He’s a bother. He’s a waste of space. He’s rotten. He should disappear.

Disappear.

**Disappear.**

** _Disappear._ **

He knows that it’s foolish. It makes no sense. Everyone’s brought to this earth for a reason. Everyone deserves a chance. Everyone has a worth.

_But_—his alarm goes off again—_maybe he’s not the same_. Maybe he isn’t a part of “everyone.” He doesn’t deserve it. He’s a monster with a life too easy to be true.

He doesn’t try.

_He never gets to try._

He doesn’t care.

_He never gets to care._

He doesn’t hurt.

_He’s hurting already._

If he died right now, no one would miss him. They would go find a replacement. They would slot the replacement right into the small little hole he leaves behind, and it would feel like nothing even happened.

Shintaro 2.0 would be a normal functioning human being. Shintaro 2.0 would be able to show others how much he cares about them. Shintaro 2.0 wouldn’t have to cower away from his words and hold his tongue captive like a convict. Shintaro 2.0 would be a good person.

Or maybe they wouldn’t even need a replacement, because they’d have Momo. Momo is all anyone needs, really. She’s kind, sweet, caring. Charismatic. Bright. Everything Shintaro wants to—but never could—be. Shintaro was the experiment—the test subject—and after he was worn of his use, they got Momo. She has her flaws, but at least she’s normal. She has emotions. She has words. She isn’t a hollow husk. She doesn’t always feel like shit. She doesn’t always treat people like shit.

The perfect child. Momo.

On days like these, it feels like everything is telling him to let go. Let go, and it won’t hurt, anyway. Let go, and it won’t matter. Let go, and…

But it’s stupid, he knows. Throwing away your life makes a waste out of everyone’s time. If you’ve got any decency, you’ll ride out whatever the world has to offer, then disappear the way nature intended.

That’s the least he can do. Someone like him doesn’t deserve an easy way out.

On days like these, he sleeps it off. It still feels cold even under his blankets.

Shintaro’s back in class a day later. He locates the usual seat, the teacher asks him if he’s okay, he says he just had a bad day, and then he stays out of people’s business—at least until first break. That’s when his day diverts. Someone’s sitting down next to him. It’s the same girl from Tuesday.

He doesn’t like it.

“Shintaro,” she says. She holds out a… paper crane, yeah. It’s a bunch of scraps haphazardly taped together, but it still forms a—however deformed—crane nevertheless. He doesn’t move. She eyes him. He eyes her.

She clearly wants him to take it.

He doesn’t.

“It’s your maths test,” she urges. “I found it on the roof.”

When he doesn’t show any sort of reaction, she places it into his hands. He drops it onto the desk. The girl stretches a flat smile.

“Shintaro.” She points at him, then directs the finger back at herself. “Ayano. Tateyama Ayano.”

Shintaro doesn’t make an effort to say anything, and that’s enough to shoo her off. She presses the crane back into his hands before she takes her leave.

He has no words. He just sits there, bewildered. Nonplussed.

_Ayano, huh… Ayano seems easy enough to remember._

Shintaro picks up the crane.

For someone who complains so much about mundanity, you’d think Shintaro would welcome change with open arms, but you’d be wrong. He’s a rat, a tiny little slave of his every day life, and any kind of change is like the Plague. It burrows into his skin and he feels flighty and then he’s on edge all day.

The day keeps getting weirder and weirder, and Shintaro’s starting to feel sick to the stomach. This Tateyama girl keeps trying to talk to him, and she keeps looking at him like he’s the kind of person who would go, _“Hooray! Talk to me more! How about the weather, huh?”_ and also break into a choreographed dance sequence. She smiles at him like he’s going to hand her his entire life story. 

In Maths, there she is, next to him, _“oooh”_ing and _“ahh”_ing at all the answers she doesn’t have. In Science, in the lab, there she is, next to him, telling him about whatever the fuck. _“Shintaro, do you think blind people can see their dreams?” “Do you think deaf people hear their thoughts?” “Hey. Do you think there are trees on the moon? Oxygen on the moon? Shintaro?”_

If you asked her what she was doing, she’d say, “Talking to you, Shintaro!” and if you asked _him_ what she was doing, he’d say, “Being a pain in the ass.” Ayano’s never stood out to him before. She still doesn’t. He just knows her from seventh grade, when she carried two frogs around in her hands all day and didn’t touch a single textbook because her hands were all wet. And full of frogs. She named the frogs Ayana and Ayanee. He’s pretty sure they did a science project together. Other than that, he doesn’t know anything else about her.

He doesn’t understand what she wants. He doesn’t understand her motives. Why she’s even wasting her time “talking to Shintaro.”

For once, he doesn’t know the answer straight away.

So, when the lunch bell rings and he finds Ayano beside him again, he wills himself a question.

“What’s your problem?”

Ayano stops, mid-bite, and blinks up at him, her eyes bright with either delight or confusion. (Those two are surprisingly interchangeable. He sees it on Momo all the time.)

Ayano smiles. “Whaddya mean?”

“What’s your problem?” He doesn’t see why he should refine his question.

“Uhm…” She giggles. “Sorry, I’m a bit slow, I know, but what exactly do you mean?” She’s made a clear effort to sound less slurred. More proper. She wipes some crumbs off her cheek, and gives a loose, lopsided smile. Shintaro narrows his eyes.

“Why do you keep talking to me?” he asks.

“You seem kinda lonely,” is her immediate response. He clicks his tongue.

“I don’t need pity.”

“I’m not here to give you pity.” She passes him another crane.

_“I don’t need cranes,”_ is what Shintaro wants to say, but his mouth does a nervous malfunction and the only thing that tumbles out is the word “crane,” which just makes him sound stupid. He blinks. God, it’s been so long since he’s had to hold up a conversation with another human being. Even his conversations with Momo are a minute—max.

“Yeah.” Ayano points at the paper bird. “Crane,” she says, like she’s teaching a toddler its vowels.

He blinks again, but this time more distastefully. (He channels it all into his eyebrows.)

“Why?”

“You look lonely,” she repeats.

“What’s it matter to you?”

“Hmm.” Ayano frowns. “Crane.”

“Crane,” he faintly echoes.

Then she returns to her lunch. “Just think about it.”

Fourth period comes crashing through the window, and Shintaro receives another crane. He looks over to meet Ayano’s beady eyes. She’s leaning in as close as her neck can carry her, but retreats as soon as she sees he’s on her case.

“Unfold it! There’s a surprise! Unfold it! Shintaro!” she whisper-chants to him—so, like, hissing. He’s got a girl hissing at him, which is a fantasy he’s never had.

He can feel Ayano’s expectant gaze on him. He’s not going to give her the satisfaction: he hardly knows her and there’s hardly a reason he should be submitting to a stranger. But he’s also horribly curious. (He thinks it’s curiosity, anyway—it’s been a while since he’s had to be _curious_.)

He can’t even begin to imagine what would happen if he caved. He’d have to meet Ayano’s gaze, her shining eyes—her at his ear, telling him all about how she’s so glad she opened her gift, did he like it, and now she and him are the best of friends and she can use him for whatever she wants. It’s just a crane, but at the same time it’s so much more. It’s a Trojan horse, and you don’t just open the gates to anybody.

There’s no way he can let her in.

So, he decides to unfold the crane, but, like, discreetly. She’ll never need to know. He turns away like he’s dropped something on the floor, then starts to hack away at the bird. Ayano’s really gone above and beyond with this shit; these don’t look like traditional folds. It’s like… stitching, actually. Somehow, Ayano has managed to stitch with cheap notepad paper. Shintaro’s not even impressed—he’s just pissed it takes so long to unfold.

When his fingers finally work it out, he breathes a soft hiss of relief, and straightens out the paper on his lap. There’s a small sentence, written in Ayano’s small handwriting with her small i’s and curled f’s.

_“Let’s be friends!! ^^”_

Shintaro scowls more than he’s scowled the whole month. You know, just when he thought he couldn’t get more pissed, here he is: more pissed. So much effort just for _that_? A stupid, five-year-old’s note? What does Ayano even expect? He’s going to turn around, starry-eyed, smile at her and say, “Oh my god, yes, girl, let’s totally be best friends! Let’s give each other manicures and talk about boys”? God, imagine telling his family. That conversation would be fun.

_“Mum, Momo, I met this girl at school and now we’re best friends.”_

_“Shintaro, that’s great, but why don’t you talk to me more, you stupid piece of shit? Me, the sister who’s always waiting on you, hand and foot? Me, the sister who’s always talking to you even though you never talk to me? Me, the sister who has to put up with all your shit? You’re the worst brother I could’ve ever had!”_

_“Honey, I appreciate that you’ve got a friend, but shouldn’t your family come first? You’re out talking to your classmates but you never talk to us? You never even ask about my day, and now you’ve found yourself a best friend? Are we just not good enough? Where’s the Shintaro I used to know and love?”_

It’s so tiring. Just thinking about it is so tiring.

They’ve never talked much, but now that he’s had to sit through this pathetic exchange, he’s decided that he hates this Tateyama girl. Good. Knowing this makes him feel much better already.

There’s a reason no one talks to him. If she had a single brain cell, she’d know that.

Shintaro’s hand darts across his desk and snatches up a black bullpoint pen. He scrawls a huge **“NO”** on the back of the crane, then scrunches it up into a small ball and chucks it back in Ayano’s direction, not really caring if she receives it or not.

Ayano doesn’t ask to walk home with him, which is a relief. (He doesn’t know why he’d expect that—it’s just along the same lane as everything she’s already done.) She just waves him goodbye—“Have a good one, Shintaro!”—smiles that loose smile again, then disappears.

Shintaro doesn’t even know what to make of this day. It’s different, sure, but it’s not like he’s ever asked for this. It’s not like he sat down one day and said, “God, if I may have one wish, I would ask for this girl I don’t even know to bother me to wit’s end.”

He’s thinking back on everything he’s done over the past few days. Has he ever once indicated to Ayano that he wanted company? She asked him about his test on Tuesday, and that’s it. Was there something else in that exchange? In that one second of eye contact they shared, did she somehow read, “Ayano, please, I’m so lonely,” instead of, “Hey, can you go away?” 

And then on Wednesday, he took the day off, and here, today—Thursday—she won’t leave him alone. Did something happen on Wednesday that he doesn’t know about? Maybe she thought, “Huh, Shintaro’s taking the day off to be a lazy jerk, so maybe I’ll come along to whip him into shape.” Maybe his mum contacted her somehow and said, “Ayano, dear, would you mind fixing my son? Just hang out with him a bit, fend off his loneliness,” and Ayano said, “Well, miss, he seems quite broken beyond repair, but I’ll give it a shot!” and they both laughed. (He doesn’t know how his mum would have Ayano’s number, but as it turns out, judging by today’s events, he doesn’t know as much as he’d first thought, anyway. He doesn’t know shit about this whole Tateyama crux.)

Momo’s home already—she must’ve taken the bus, even though she always insists on walking, to conserve her “carbon footprint.” She and Shintaro got into an argument about it a few months ago, when she insisted he did it as well: Shintaro said there was no point, Momo said, “The Earth’s dying, that’s enough of a point, isn’t it?” and Shintaro said, “Everything dies, Momo! Nothing we do matters!” and then she started crying and Shintaro left to his room.

All of her tennis equipment is littered all over the floor, and Shintaro would say something about it if he weren’t tired to his fucking core. Every month, she tries a new hobby—last month it was juggling, and she’d do it all the time, and you could hear the balls clattering all over the floor, and it was one of the worst periods of Shintaro’s short, horrible life. He’s always scolding her about being so flighty, but, really, he envies her motivation. Getting out and trying new things, even though there’s no benefit. Even though nobody cares. Even though nothing matters in the end. That’s nice, probably.

He’ll say that, but he’ll never actually get out and do anything. He’ll just sit there and be envious and want what he can’t have, instead of actually doing anything about it. He’s used to that kind of lifestyle. Sometimes, he gets a bit sick of it, of course, and something in his head tells him to “Live, Shintaro, live a little,” but all he needs to do to shut it up is remind himself that nothing matters at all. There’s no point. Why do something if there’s no point?

Momo’s washing her racket over the sink, with her fingers. Shintaro watches in idle interest: Momo squeezes a bit of soap out onto her index finger, then spreads it around the ring of the racket like she’s topping a pizza. It’s actually kind of sad.

“Use a washcloth,” Shintaro tells her.

“I’m doing it naturally,” Momo says without turning around. She’s probably tired. Shintaro doesn’t really care enough to ask why. He shrugs and leaves to his room.

When he sinks into his bed, though, his thoughts get louder. It happens every single time. _Well, if that’s the case_, you’re thinking, _then why do you keep fucking doing it?_ It’s more out of hope than anything. Whenever he told his mum he had a headache, she’d tell him to lie down. _Lie down, and you’ll feel better_. He’s supposed to feel better in bed, but he doesn’t. He just lies there in hope that, someday, that magical headache cure will work and his thoughts will simmer out and he won’t feel so horrible and tired all the time, and he’ll be able to walk down the stairs and say, “Mum, Momo, let’s play a game together.”

When he sinks into his bed, he gets so, so tired, but just tired enough that it keeps him awake. Just tired enough that everything is blurry, and everything hurts, but also still bright enough to keep him awake. It’s familiar in his bed, too. Nothing can really get to him there, except for himself. That’s the one thing. The one thing he can never get away from. Himself.

God, he wishes he didn’t have to be himself. He wishes he didn’t have to be stuck in this stupid body. He thinks about it a lot—if he were to… transfer himself into someone else, what would he take with him? Would he take anything at all? Is that an option? If “becoming like someone else” means that he still has to retain certain parts of himself, he doesn’t even want to do that. His brain is faulty and his body is tired, all the time. There’s nothing even remotely redeemable about him at all.

And that’s the thing about his bed. It makes his thoughts so loud. But it’s comfortable. Where he can engage with his thoughts and only his thoughts, without having to worry about the people around him watching or listening or judging.

Shintaro’s ideal life is probably: 1) lie in bed; 2) die. Simple. Easy.

Someone creaks the door open, and Shintaro doesn’t have to lift his head to know it’s Momo. She always opens his door a certain way—push it a bit, wait, push it a bit more, it creaks loudly, press one foot on the floor and creep in. The bed sinks a bit. God, he hates it when she sits on his bed.

“Hey, uh. Good or Bad?” she says: it’s a code she got a few months back, when Shintaro told her, “Keep it short or I’ll close the door.” Good or Bad just means: _“Hey, how are you feeling? I’ve shortened the sentence to the least amount of variables, and now you only need to respond with one word because you’re actual human scum.”_

“Bad,” he says.

“Oh.” The weight lifts off his bed. Thank god. “Well. I hope you feel Good soon.”

There’s a part of him that wants to say thank you, thank you for putting up with all his shit—there’s a part of him that wants to be Good—but his thoughts keep swirling around and around and around and his mouth won’t open. It’s too much effort. He’s way too tired. He’ll lie here, and he’ll rot, and Momo will never know how much he appreciates her, and maybe that’s for the best.

So that when he’s gone, maybe it won’t hurt anyone at all.

On Friday, Ayano catches him in the door and buzzes around him with about the most basic thing anyone could possibly say: “Thank god it’s Friday!” Shintaro very slightly nods his head. Like hell he’s going to give _that_ a response.

“What have _you_ got planned on this _amazing_ Friday, oh, Kisaragi Shintaro the Great?” Ayano swings herself around his chair. She’s so hyper, it’s… it’s not _amazing_, definitely. It’s concerning. Like she’s a cokehead, and Friday’s her drug.

Shintaro pulls back so far his chin sinks back into his neck. He’s probably going to try the rooftop again. “Nothing much,” he says, arranging his desk with everything he’ll need for first period. Pencil case in the top right corner: withdraw pencil (2), eraser (1), bullpoint (4), sharpener (1)—place them descending vertically below pencil case…

“Well, if that’s the case, you should come join in _my_ exciting plans!” Ayano says. She’s so… animated. Her face goes through, like, seven different equally as bright emotions in a matter of five seconds. Her hands are always off doing something, whether she’s aware of it or not. Currently, she’s fiddling around with one of his erasers and he swats it out of her hands.

“So, how about it?” she says, unaffected.

“No,” he says, then pauses, then adds, “Did you get my note?”

“You mean my crane? The one I threw at you and then you threw back at me? Very traditional communication, by the way. Notes via crane are the way of the world.” She smiles.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Yes, I got it.” Ayano pauses for a second, frowns… then smiles again. “Maybe I was a bit too blunt with that, sorry. I mean, we don’t even know each other yet! But that can change, right? Maybe we’ll hang out a bunch more, and then we _will_ become friends! Who knows what the future holds, Shintaro!”

God, she talks so much, and so fast, too. Even if he were invested in the conversation, how could he be expected to keep up with that? His mouth practically runs at 3 miles an hour. Hers? 1000 miles an hour.

Flustered, he just nods. Perhaps that’s her strategy, like when you waffle through an essay. Use a lot of words, your conversation partner gets confused, they nod, you’ve gotten away with whatever you’re doing. He should probably pay more attention to what she’s saying, then? But perhaps that’s actually what she wants. She’s making him think she wants something else so that he does all he can to prevent it, but in doing so, he’s actually giving her exactly what she wants…

Ayano sits down beside him—right next to the window—and Shintaro watches her settle down, not really knowing what he’s looking for, just that he’s looking for _something_.

God. People are so confusing. There’s solid fucking reason behind this glass box of his.

Class jumps to a start—they’re learning about The Great Depression; all history teachers are _obsessed_ with The Great Depression—and Shintaro takes down a few notes, sure, but he’s also side-eyeing Ayano every now and then, still waiting for that something. He doesn’t get it, however, because Ayano just sits there and folds cranes and scribbles around in her notebook that Shintaro’s just realised isn’t a notebook at all. It’s a journal she’s called, “Thoughts I Think About.” (Next to that, there are crossed out phrases that Shintaro can only assume were the journal’s previous names: “Ayano’s Diary,” “Observations From The Pit,” “Additional Memories,” “Ayano’s Non-profit Autobiography.”)

Once she’s accumulated her flock of paper cranes, she tries edging the window open—but fails, naturally. She sighs a little and starts rocking back and forth on her chair instead, smiling and giggling every now and then at something Shintaro doesn’t see. Somehow, despite all the commotion she’s causing, she stays under teacher radar. She catches him staring once; she stares right back at him, that stupid smile on her face, and Shintaro winces on instinct. God. He looks creepy, doesn’t he? Then again, the fuck’s it matter? Perhaps he _should_ try be creepy as possible, to chase her off.

But then again, maybe she’ll get freaked and tell everyone in the school and eventually he’ll become the School Creep and they’ll send him to counselling and he’ll get expelled because they can’t trust him around girls, and then he’ll have to explain to his mum why and Momo will laugh at him and his mum will be even more disappointed than she usually is. You can’t get expelled for staring at a girl, though, he’s pretty sure.

Perhaps he’s overthinking it.

When first period ends, Ayano asks him, “So you’re really doing nothing today?”

He bites back a ‘Why would I be,’ because that’s definitely a word too many. “Doing nothing,” he says instead.

“On a Friday? Nothing on a Friday?”

“What’s so great about Friday?” he says and he doesn’t even have the gull to count his words. God, now he sounds _interested_. Now Ayano looks _excited_. So, like, brilliant in absolutely every single way.

“It’s a party day!” Ayano says; her hands are performing a strange reggae interpretation of modern jazz. “Are you telling me the word Friday doesn’t make you feel anything? Doesn’t set off any primal urge within you?”

“Can’t say so.”

“Wow…” She leans back and her eyes widen, and she says “_Wow_,” again, just for good measure. “Well, I can hack that! Let’s throw a bangin’ party! Rockin’ party! Knock-your-socks-off party!”

“Are you kidding me,” he says, mostly to himself, in a lulled, dull voice she’d only hear if she were _really_ listening. (Of course, she hears it.)

“I am most certainly not, Kisaragi Shintaro.” Why does she insist on saying his full name. “Come join me at the park. I will: bring my family. You will: bring a party attitude. We will: jam hard. We will: bond.”

“Are you fucking kidding me.” Whatever drugs she’s on, she is flying _high_. There’s no way he’s talking to a sane, functioning human being, and that’s amazing coming from Kisaragi Shintaro himself.

“You will not: bring those PG-13 words with you. My siblings are _young_, Shintaro. You’ll need to be a good big brother.”

“I am not a part of your family.”

“You are not. You are an honorary member.”

“I’m not going to your party, Ayano.”

“You said my name!” She interrupts the rhythm with an impossibly bright smile. “_That’s_ not something you hear every day.”

Alright. Mental note: never say her name again. Should be simple enough. Shintaro shrugs.

“Honest mistake.”

“A _good_ mistake,” Ayano says, in this tone like she’s correcting him when really she’s not. “My name sounds nice when you say it.”

_Well. My name sounds nice when you say it, too, if I’m supposed to balance out the scale, here_. Fat chance he’s ever telling her that. He doesn’t even know how _she_ can say it so easily, especially with a smile like that.

“Well, anyway.” Ayano shrugs and hops back into her seat; Mr. Kishimoto’s come back for Maths. “It’s Tsubomi’s birthday, so…”

Right, and Shintaro’s gonna nod like he knows and cares who “Tsubomi” is.

“You’re coming, right?”

“No.”

“Okay! I’ll see you there!”

Ayano smiles.

It seems almost hopeless—it seems like Shintaro and Ayano share every single fucking class together—until English rolls around. And, god, does it please him to know that he does not have to see her there.

After English, it’s lunch, and Shintaro throws his bento out again. It’s just one of those days—his stomach telling him, if he’s gonna eat, he’s gonna hurl. He’s just gonna go to the rooftop again. (And Ayano is to be seen nowhere near him.)

It’s a clear day, surprisingly enough. Because it’s winter, the sky’s almost always cloudy, so it’s rare he gets to savour the sky for what it is—the sky. It’s not like he _enjoys_ the sun—it’s just nice to see it there, sometimes, because it’d shock you how easy it is to forget about.

On the rooftop, Shintaro tends to go through some sort of haze where he’s acutely aware of his existence. Aware of the fact that he’s _here_, the fact that he’s got a _body_, the fact that he can feel the sun on his skin, the fact that he can feel the wind rustling his hair. It’s a strange feeling. He’s kinda got a love-hate relationship with it.

It’s like an anchor, and Shintaro doesn’t exactly want any anchors. He doesn’t want to waste his time with anything that might tie him to this earth. There’s no point caring about anything if you’re just going to lose it all one day. And that’s what death is, isn’t it? The end of the game. Losing everything.

Every time he looks down over the handrails, there’s a tiny voice in his head, telling him, _“Shintaro! Think about all the cells that make up you! Your body is amazing, isn’t it? Look at all the grass! The trees! The sky! The world is wonderful!”_ and then, like the coward he is, he can’t find the courage to do what he wants to do.

But, in the long run, he knows he’s not actually allowed to do it, anyway. No matter how much he tries to shrink down his own existence, there’s no avoiding that it’ll eventually hurt _someone_. Someone who doesn’t deserve to be hurt. Someone like his mum. Momo. That’s… probably it. That’s still two people. Two people he’s dragged deep enough into his own scars.

It’s just a routine to come up here, to the rooftop. A way to kill time. Shintaro stares out onto the road, over the handrails, and wishes for the things he can’t have. Wishes for the jump he can’t make. Whatever. It’s really not that deep.

“So, what do you do up here?” he hears someone say, and he jolts back onto this plane of existence. God, it’s Ayano. Of course she’d find him up here. The one place he’s got to himself. No one comes up here, because _he’s_ here. Because he’s Shintaro, the aloof freak.

“What do you want?” he says, focusing on some roadside bushes.

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Turn around, Shintaro. Look at me. Are you okay?”

Yeah, Ayano can bite his fucking ass. If she thinks she can just come up here and act like she’s so good, she’s got another thing coming. There’s a reason no one talks to him.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Don’t mind me.”

“Hmm. Okay.” And then Ayano’s right next to him, and Shintaro’s about to hurl, right over this handrail. “What are you doing up here, Shintaro?”

He sighs. “Watching.”

“Watching what?”

_What do you fucking think?_ “The road.”

“For what?”

The veins in his head feel like they’re about to burst right open. And you know what—even if his forehead did end up splitting open and he started bleeding all over the place, you know what Ayano would fucking say? _“Wow, your blood’s so red! You’re amazing, Shintaro!”_ Or she’d stand around going, _“Awaaaaa, awaaaaa, Shintaro, are you okay?”_ instead of—you know—calling an ambulance. He’s just got a feeling that would happen.

“Shintaro? Are you okay?”

There it is. Shintaro stares at her with the sharpest look he can muster. _What_ is her _problem_? What does she want him to _say_? He already said he was fucking fine, and maybe that was a lie, but it’s sure not Ayano’s fucking place to say. He’s _fine_. She should be happy with that.

“I’m _fine_.”

Ayano’s silent for a while—which, by the way, thank god. Then she sits down.

“… So, umm. You’re really not coming to the party?” she says, quietly. Shintaro didn’t think she was capable of talking below 100 decibels. She’s sitting with her legs crossed, staring right up at him—and he’s standing, looking over the rooftop, and ideally he’d be feeling superior and powerful, but really he just feels stupid. Like how you’d feel if you dropped a pencil and it was just staring right back up at you.

So, he sits down, too.

“I don’t know why you want me to go,” he says eventually.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Ayano says. “You’re my maybe-friend!”

_Well, you’re not _my_ maybe-friend_, he wants to say, but somehow he can’t form the words. He just stares at the soles of his shoes, all dirtied and worn out.

“I mean, well, really, it’s your choice and I guess I’d understand if you don’t want to go, but I really do recommend you come! I guarantee it’ll be _some_ fun, Shintaro!” She smiles, but for once, it’s not at him—which is confusing, to say the least. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m kinda pushy sometimes, right? Sorry if I came off that way. I guess I just get really excited about some things, you know?”

Shintaro nods, but he doesn’t really know. Ayano reminds him of his sister, in that way. Glowing with this bubbly feeling he’ll never be able to grasp. Yeah, if he had to tack a word to Ayano, it’d be _bubbly_.

“I don’t know,” is what he ends up saying.

“Well, hmm… How about this?” Ayano shifts a tad closer to him. _Ugh_ is his immediate thought. “What are you unsure about? Let Ayano put your worries to rest!”

Oh, and now he’s in therapy, is that it? He was right. Ayano was sent on a mission to “fix” him, because he’s “broken.” Well, she’s in over her head. If he could just _fix_ himself, he would’ve done it years ago.

“It’s nothing,” Shintaro says.

“Then you should come to the party.” Ayano stares at him. (He’s not looking at her; he can just _feel_ her eyes on him.) “You’ve got nothing going on this afternoon, right?”

“Nothing,” Shintaro says again.

“Then it’s no big deal, right?”

It _is_ a big deal. It’s a huge deal. Kisaragi Shintaro, agreeing to attend some girl’s party. Kisaragi Shintaro, the kid who hasn’t been seen outside of school _once_, agreeing to “get down on Friday.” It’s _insane_.

_But_, some part of him argues, _she’s right, isn’t she? What else are you going to do, Shintaro? Go home and rot in bed all day? Ignore your family? Feel sorry for yourself? You’re not even trying. _Shintaro would usually do what he always does—tell that voice to shut up, that he’s in the right—but he just can’t find it in him to do it. He hears that voice all the time. _Asshole. Do something with your fucking life_, it tells him. _Waste of space_. 

But when he’s listening to Ayano talk about her party, when he’s thinking about actually attending, it’s a bit quieter. It’s not completely gone, but it’s quieter. It tells him that he’s a horrible person, but at least he’s trying. He’s not sure if he believes in the power of “trying,” but when he tells Ayano he’ll try to come, when he sees her face light up, he convinces himself it might be worth a shot. Just for now.

Shintaro’s never actually been to anyone else’s house before. Granted, the park isn’t exactly Ayano’s house, but it has the same kind of “new house” vibe. For one: everyone already knows everyone, except for him. No one knows who he is, and he doesn’t know who anyone else is. Except for Ayano. She’s going around making introductions; Shintaro’s got a _huge_ migraine. It hurts so, so much. _God_.

“And this is Shuuya—he’s kinda like the jokester of the family! He’s a cheeky lil’ one, isn’t he?”

“I’m _mischievous_, sis. _Chaotic_. I hate the word ‘cheeky.’” The boy stares at him. (Shuuya, right? That’s his name? Shintaro’s a second away from passing out.) His eyes look like they’re permanently narrowed. Shintaro’s are like that too. For a hot minute, Shintaro considers saying that to him: _“Hey, you and me, our eyes, they’re the same. We look like we’re always staring at the sun too hard.”_ But he can’t figure out whether or not Shuuya would find that funny, so he keeps it to himself. Jokes are a “high risk, high reward” thing that you _cannot_ chance for first encounters.

Shuuya’s narrowed eyes narrow even more. “So, you’re Shintaro, huh?”

Shintaro gives him a blank stare, and Ayano says, “Haha, uh, what’s that tone for, Shuuya?”

“Sis talks about you sometimes.” Shuuya shrugs. Shintaro’s migraine gets a lot worse. “Jury’s out for me, though. You’re still on trial.”

“Okay,” is all Shintaro can say. (His breathing’s completely out of sync, he’s noticed.)

Shuuya hurries off to where his brother’s sitting, somewhere under the trees, and Shintaro briefly wonders where this “Tsubomi” is. (Is Shuuya’s brother “Tsubomi”? It’s not much of a guy’s name—though it’s probably not his place to say.)

There’s two kids, Ayano, her parents… God, she hasn’t even introduced him to her parents yet. Another round of: “Mum, Dad, this is Shintaro,” “Hello, I’m Shintaro,” “Oh, hi, we’re Ayano’s parents!” “Nice to meet you, Ayano’s parents,” “Isn’t the weather great today?” “Oh, yeah, tell me about it,” while his voice sounds like a shovel dragged across the pavement. Every time someone looks at him, he can already tell what they’re thinking: _Fucking weirdo. Look at that freak. Really doesn’t know what Vitamin D is, does he? Freak_. He’s hardly presentable. He’s not even functional, really. He only responds to two out of five things people say to him, and even then, it’s usually just a word.

He sees people’s mouths moving, but he can’t hear the words. His heart pounds way louder than anyone in this park. His ears are filled with white noise. He hasn’t eaten anything all day, and it still feels like he’s about to throw up, all over this Tateyama family.

_This was a mistake_. There was no reason to push the limits of his glass box, but he did, and now he’s here, trying to pretend he’s listening, instead of freaking the fuck out.

_This was a mistake_. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. Is he really that weak-willed? A girl pays him some attention for a minute or so and suddenly he’s off, following her wherever she wants to go? He’s not supposed to do that—so why did he do it? Not a clue in hell.

_This was a mistake._

His family’s always talking about how much better he was as a child, but maybe they’re wrong there, too. He’s always been this bad, as long as he can remember. Shintaro’s always been like this.

_This was a mistake._

He’ll freak out at performances. He’ll freak out at assemblies. He’ll freak out at parties. People start looking at him and his brain starts filling in their thoughts about him—_“He’s so awkward.” “What’s he doing with his hands?” “Doesn’t this guy know how to fucking talk to people?” “He can’t even form a sentence. Waste of time talking to someone like this.”_—and then he freezes up and everything feels narrow and tight. 

_This was a mistake._

Last time he went out… when was that?

Year 4. His cousin’s birthday. Cloudy. Chilly. Koutarou’s mum asked if he wanted a drink and he said, “Yep, please.” Someone told him he was too quiet. He needed to talk more. He tried to talk more. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Whenever he opened his mouth, people would say, “Cat got your tongue?” or “Ain’t got all day, man,” or “You gonna say something or you just gonna waste oxygen?” or they’d ignore him. During musical chairs, he snuck off to the bathroom and he locked eyes with himself in the mirror and then something in him just broke and he started bawling. He probably realised what an eyesore he was—which, if he had any common sense at all, he should’ve noticed a long time ago.

Mrs. Tateyama is telling him about her job, and Mr. Tateyama is nodding along every now and then. Shuuya and his brother are knocking plastic cups off the table, and Shuuya gives him a strange look every now and then: _“You’re weird, Shintaro. You don’t belong here. This is a family get-together. Ayano invited you because she felt bad. She’s a nice person. You’re disgusting.”_ Amazing insight, that Shuuya kid.

“I teach at your school, you know, Kisaragi,” Mr. Tateyama says. “Your sister—Momo, right? I’ve seen her around. Interesting kid.”

And then Shintaro seriously says, “Wow,” and every single cell within his body is screaming for release. He looks like he’s been pulled out of a storm drain.

_This was a mistake._ The hugest mistake of his life, probably. Probably not, but nothing else comes to mind—and, currently, hanging around this park with a bunch of people he does not know in the slightest, kind of feels just the tiniest bit like getting strangled to death.

“Hey, Shintaro?” Ayano peeks in from the corner of his eye, holding a few cans of soda. Fermented nightmare. Shintaro doesn’t get the appeal—it’s really just sugar in a can, right? But Shuuya and his brother are going to fucking town, downing can after can, and just looking at them sends his stomach into a flux that’s most likely going to end with him going to town over the toilet seat.

Ayano hands him a can. “Take one, take all! Shintaro!”

His face contorts into _something_ sure enough—it’s probably disgust—because Ayano looks impossibly concerned. “Shintaro? Are you okay?”

God, he can _feel_ it. He’s being a twitchy weirdo. He flinches every time she says his name, because she says it like she’s known him forever—she says it with this strange fondness he can never quite wrap his head around. He’s seriously going to be fucking sick, isn’t he. Can’t survive a day outside, talking to other people, because he’s not really a person himself. Simple as that. What’s he even doing? Why did he even try? What did he think was going to change? Did he think he could just fix himself, easy as that? That he could just step into some loser’s party, and all of a sudden, he’d feel better? He should’ve just gone to the roof again. It’s quiet. Peaceful. If he teeters too far off the edge, he’ll fall, and he won’t have to deal with all this shit anymore.

Or he could’ve gone home, rotting in bed all day, disappointing everyone he knows. A win-win situation, if that’s what they’re called.

“You should sit down,” Ayano says, low, in a tone he hasn’t really heard before. “I’ll get you a glass of water, okay? Don’t move.”

He shakes his head. “Is there a bathroom around here?”

“Shintaro, I really think you should just sit down for a while.”

Ayano’s caring for him, right? Ugh. That feels disgusting. _Breaking news! Kisaragi Shintaro burdens another human being!_ The little—bigger, now—voice in his head says, _Well, that’s not much of a surprise, isn’t it?_

“Just tell me if there’s a bathroom.” This park is only a few hundred metres away from school. Walk a few roads. The bathroom’s a cover—he just needs to get away. His stomach is churning. It’s far too painful to just sit around. People will talk to him. He’ll struggle to hold up a normal conversation. They’ll see him for what he really is: a cold-hearted, worthless asshole.

They’ll see it eventually, anyway, but not today. Shintaro can’t handle today. He’s starting to think he can’t handle anything at all.

Ayano stares him head-on. He looks at his shoes.

“There’s one ’round about that tree over there,” she says, slowly. “It’s around there if you need it. Hurry back, though, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Shintaro walks down around the tree, then he disappears down the road, the churning in his chest worse and worse the further his legs take him.

Sometimes, like anyone else, Shintaro hears rumours about himself; the biggest of which is that he’s a secret party animal who “totally gets down on the weekends.” _I mean, look at him_, they say, _he’s so stoic, how else would he let off steam?_

But they’re wrong. He’s not “depressed in the streets and a freak in the sheets.” His life doesn’t suddenly get all weird and wild on the weekends.

Shintaro spends his Saturday the same as always: lying in bed. If he’s feeling particularly alive, maybe he’ll get up and do some homework. His family doesn’t usually see Shintaro for more than half an hour at any time on a weekend (on weekdays, too, actually, now that he thinks about it).

Weekends lack structure, which makes them so much harder to deal with. There’s nothing stopping him from sleeping all day. (It’s not even sleeping. It’s hours upon hours of staring at nothing.) If he gets up, who cares? If he doesn’t get up, who cares?

Weekends are for self-care. “Me-time.” Doing the things you don’t have time for on weekdays. Like he doesn’t already have enough time to rot away in bed.

His sister says he needs a hobby. Not that it matters, though. Hobby or not, it won’t matter in the end. He hasn’t got the motivation for anything. He can’t be his own motivator, because he already knows he’s full of shit.

Weekends are 48 hours of doing absolutely nothing, and then feeling bad about doing nothing when school comes back around. Last summer vacation, the guilt almost killed him.

Today, at somewhere around 8am and 4pm, Ayano’s on his mind again. She’s a thought that bobs up and down and up and down, resurfacing every time he closes his eyes. Her smile. Specifically. That’s on his mind. It’s _unbearable_. 

Does she smile at everyone like that? She must, right? Shintaro’s nothing special. Someone like Ayano can’t save a smile like that just for someone like him. It’s implausible.

Ayano herself is implausible. He doesn’t… _get_ her. Why does she insist on talking to him? It’s a question that circles around and around and around his head. Thinking about it makes him dizzy.

He’s nothing special.

But somehow, it feels like she is.

And it doesn’t make any sense.

_Does it have to make sense? _something tells him.

_It does_, he eventually decides. _Yes, it does_.

What does Ayano do on her weekends? Someone as bright as her must spend equally as bright days. She seems like the kind of person who always knows how to have fun. Shintaro hates people like that. People who can just look past the hopeless circumstances that create “human existence.” People like that are always one or the other: stupid or ignorant. Or both. _Or happy_. 

Happiness is subjective, Shintaro thinks—no, Shintaro _knows_. Happiness isn’t a rigid thing—it’s not an exact value. What works for someone might not work for someone else, something Shintaro knows way too well. People spend their entire lives in search of something that might not even exist at all. It’s stupid.

It’s so unbelievably stupid.

It’s… strange. Happiness is a strange thing. Something Shintaro might never experience. (It doesn’t make him sad. He doesn’t really feel anything at all.)

But for someone like Ayano… It might be possible. She’s stupid, and happiness is stupid, and it’s a perfect match. She looks like someone who’s made all the right choices. Someone whose life didn’t just suddenly go wrong. Someone happy.

Ayano looks _happy_. Shintaro can’t stop thinking about that.

And it’s so, so tiring.

It’s Monday again, and Shintaro’s noticed that he’s seeing Ayano a little differently. Like she’s a different person. Someone so much better than him.

A saint. A martyr. Probably. You know what—add god to the list. Shintaro’s low enough to start thinking of this girl as a fucking god.

His chest is heavy, and, as usual, he’s not got a damn clue why. It’s like running a marathon just to breathe, which must be funny or ironic or whatever the fuck. 

He and Ayano make eye contact, and in his head he hears her chirping, “Are you okay?” and—big surprise—that’s exactly what she says. She tacks, “You just disappeared! I told you not to do that!” onto the end, which makes Shintaro feel like the king of the fucking world. (He’s kidding. He feels like a cockroach that’s crawled up someone’s ass.)

Shintaro shrugs. He hasn’t got the energy or the time or the heart to deal with this shit so early in the morning. Of course, like usual, Ayano doesn’t care, because she persists with, “I’m serious, Shintaro. I was really worried,” and Shintaro wants to say, “Bite me,” but fights through it, because he’d sound like an asshole and that’s not exactly his priority right now. So, he rolls his eyes instead.

“Don’t…” An exasperated sigh escapes through two pursed lips. Ayano shakes her head. “Well, you’re okay, right?”

“What does it look like?”

“Shintaro, you can’t ask me that question. You look like you’ve been thrown around in a car wash.”

Yeah, and that’s how he feels, too. But, “Whatever, I’m fine,” is what he settles for instead.

Ayano pouts for a while, wriggling her fingers and saying nothing. Shintaro just _has_ to roll his eyes again.

“What’s your problem?”

Ayano’s head snaps up and she giggles, light and airy. (God, shut up. _Light and airy_. He’s not a fucking poet.)

“You’ve asked that one before, Shintaro!”

“Yeah. For a reason.”

“Well, I don’t think I’d be the best person to ask,” Ayano says, shrugging. “Would you know what _your_ problem is, Shintaro?”

For a second, he thinks she’s picking him apart again. Trying to fix him. But by the way she’s smiling at him, he just can’t put his heart into that anxiety. So he says, “No.”

“Exactly!” She throws up an index finger. “Besides, that’s not a very good way to look at ourselves, anyway. It’s important to reflect on problems sometimes, but that isn’t all there is to it! Right?”

She thinks she’s such a fucking saint. God, she’s so bubbly, it’s like she’s campaigning for mayor of nothing. Third time’s the charm—Shintaro rolls his eyes again.

“There’s answers,” he says.

“Mmmm…” Ayano nods slowly. “Well, you’re not wrong. Answers matter, too.”

Yeah, and he’d _like_ a fucking answer, thanks. He’s asked the question three times already.

“Why are you so obsessed with how I am?” He sits down at his desk and Ayano hovers around the edges and Shintaro shrugs as aggressively as he can to try swat her off. _Fly—no, pest. That’s it. That’s what she is_.

Ayano tilts her head one way, then the other. Then she smiles, all teeth. Gross.

“I ask how you are whenever you look down. If you’d call what I’m doing obsessing, then that means you just don’t care enough about yourself,” she says; she nods to herself like she’s just closed the world’s hugest mystery. _Alright_, Shintaro thinks. _Al-fucking-right_.

“But it’s not your problem,” he snaps.

“You can’t see into my head, Shintaro,” Ayano says. “You can’t know what’s my problem and what’s not my problem.”

There’s a quick and sharp remark hanging just off the tip of his tongue, but Ayano’s words leech onto him like… like a leech. Fucking leech. It’s almost hard to believe that Ayano’s got any problems at all. It’s hard to believe that anyone who can smile that wide has anything to worry about. She’s so bright and cheery. She doesn’t look anything like him. Shintaro, suffering, held down by anything and everything in his way; and Ayano, smiling, like someone who doesn’t even know what a problem is.

Doesn’t all suffering look the same? Shintaro’s all you’d expect out of a depressed teenager. He’s just come to expect that all depression looks like him, too.

Ayano adjusts her scarf, and smiles. Guess that’s all she ever does.

“It’s not always about problems, Shintaro,” she says, and once again, Shintaro hasn’t got a response.

“You’re not heading to the rooftop today?”

Shintaro quickens his pace down the hallway. Ayano does the same. _Damn it._

“Where are we going? No, wait, don’t tell me. It’ll be a surprise!”

_‘We.’_ Shintaro scoffs. There’s no ‘we.’ There can’t be a ‘we.’ It’d flip his entire fucking world upside down. 

“Ayano and Shintaro on an adventure! Ohh, what are we? Ayataro? Shinaya?” Ayano steps right in front of him, like a bright and smiling roadblock. So, like, gross. “You should decide, Shintaro!”

_No thanks_. He shrugs.

“Hmm… You’re not very vocal about these kinds of things, are you?”

He’s not really vocal about anything. His voice constantly sounds like it’s been burnt in the oven.

“So, you’re saying you’re letting me decide, right?” Ayano claps her hands, whatever that even means. “That’s super nice, Shintaro!”

“You came to that conclusion on your own.” There we go. Burnt oven voice. It’s impossible to stay quiet around this girl, he’s realised.

“Huh! Maybe I did!” She giggles. “But, well, Tsubomi thinks you’re a nice kid, too. She told me! She said, ‘He’s nice, that Shintaro,’ and I went, ‘Yeah! He is!’ What do you think of that?”

Bullshit, that’s what. Tsubomi probably walked into the room and went, “God, that Shintaro kid’s such an asshole! Why did you invite him? He ghosted me at my own party!” and Ayano laughed and said, “You can’t say that! That’s mean!”

Shintaro’s eyes go on and roll themselves again, on instinct, almost. “I’m not certain I saw Tsubomi, actually,” he says.

That puts a small halt in Ayano’s steps. Shintaro casts a half-interested glance her way; she shrinks a bit and shrugs.

“You didn’t?” she says, and the ghost of a moment passes before a tiny smile spreads across her face. “Guess you just didn’t look hard enough. Shame on you, Shintaro!”

“Oh, come _on_.”

“She’s really cute, you know?” Ayano goes on. “She’s kinda hard to notice, but she’s really nice! And she’s really shy! So, umm, in summary: she’s cute, and she’s nice, and she’s shy, and you’d definitely like her! She’s got your low-key, chill kind of vibe, you know?”

Her words filter in and out of his head in a blurry haze as they round another corner, and he finds himself focused on her energy: the way she bounces as she walks, the way her movements are all so exaggerated, the way her eyes gleam every time she says the word “Tsubomi.” A faltering vision passes, for a split second, through his mind: if he were to put himself in Ayano’s position. If it were him, bouncing alongside someone else, his hands flittering around every now and then, smiling a smile so bright as he talks about his own family. If simply the word “Momo” could elicit something so _alive_ inside him.

If he could love _anything_ as much as Ayano does.

In a crazy, quick moment of _want_, Shintaro’s mouth slips: “Momo is my sister,” he says, and he lets the words soak in through his ears, and a tidal wave of every single different rendition of shame seeps through every single crevice in his body. Just fucking _listen_ to what he said. Nothing deep, nothing profound—he sounds like he’s having a stroke. Like he’s just getting out the only words his brain can choke up. Like he’s got no fucking cognitive thought at all.

He sounds so, so fucking stupid. There’s no reason to open his mouth at all.

But Ayano stops and pulls him out of his spiral with a look that holds no pity, nor disgust—it’s… warm. Ugh. Mark that down as the worse thing he’s ever thought. An emotion can’t be _warm_. He can _feel_ the brain cells leaking out of his head.

“Oh, you’ve got a sister, too!” Ayano exclaims. Translation: _“Oh, you shared! You, a human being, contributed to the conversation!”_

“Momo, huh?” She sighs. “What a cute name…!”

The other Shintaro says, _Yeah, and she’s cute, too_; the current Shintaro just says, “I guess.”

“I’d love to meet her someday.” She stops for a second to look somewhat pensive. “I wonder if she’s anything like you.”

And Shintaro can’t decide for the life of him if that’s supposed to be an insult. _“I wonder if she’s anything like you. God, I hope not. I couldn’t handle another person as stuck-up as you are, Shintaro!” _That doesn’t sound right. (Ah. His judgement’s getting skewed. He can’t lose his shrewdness to _this_.)

“She’s nothing like me,” Shintaro says, and rolls along with any implications that carries. _She’s a lot better than I am_, he wants to say, but he shrugs. Things like that always get him strange looks. People look at him like they’ve got something to give him; like he’s some kind of amputated cockroach. It’s way too tiring to deal with—it’s easier to just not say anything at all.

Ayano tilts a crooked smile his way. “That’s alright,” she says. “I bet it’s not all true, though. You _are_ family, after all.”

“I don’t know about that.” Momo’s bold, and she’s bright, and she takes risks, and she has fun. Shintaro’s like the family cat. He’s there one moment, gone the next, and if he’s ever seen doing anything, it’s lazing around. But at least a cat is cute.

Ayano’s smile quirks a little downwards. She’s giving him one of those strange looks. _Pity_, his brain supplies. He didn’t even say anything that weird. Just because he’s not bouncing off the ceiling with affection, Ayano thinks something’s wrong? Just because he’s not telling a stranger everything about his sister, there’s something wrong with him? Maybe there’s something in his voice. Like, maybe he sounds like a brooding, injured child, and Ayano feels the need to take him in. _Again, like a cat._

It’s none of her business, but he can’t say that, because Ayano hasn’t actually said anything either. It’d come straight out of left field, and he’d be cursing her out just because he’s a bit paranoid she might pity him.

Either way, they’ve walked themselves outside, lingering around the outskirts of the school oval. Huh. Shintaro hasn’t been here in a while. _It’s way too bright_, he’d like to say, but in actuality, he’d just forgotten this place even existed. (P.E. takes place in the gym; the last time he attended P.E. was also two months ago.)

“Ohhhhh, the oval!” he hears Ayano say. “Good choice, Shintaro!”

“I wasn’t… actually meaning to come out here.”

Ayano giggles. “Yeah, I know, I’m pulling your leg.” She jabs a thumb backwards. “I was steering us down here. I nudged you, like, three times down the hall.”

And he was too busy thinking to notice. But it’s not all too bad, probably—Shintaro shrugs and says, “Huh.” 

“It’s a lot nicer than the rooftop, don’t you think?” Ayano drifts over to some tree and flops down beside it.

Shintaro hesitantly shuffles to catch up. “I don’t have the eye for these things.”

“Well, you can borrow my eye, then!” Ayano says—off Shintaro’s squint, she puts up a finger: “This place is very nice—and that’s an Ayano guarantee.”

_Ayarantee_, he considers saying—for only the shortest, shortest second, he swears. _Would she have liked it, though?_ Then again, who cares? But maybe she would’ve laughed. Maybe he would’ve made a person laugh. That hasn’t happened in a while. (The moment’s passed, anyway, so it’s not like he even cares.)

“Hey, you don’t eat standing up, do you?”

He turns to see Ayano staring up at him, expectantly, probably. She pats the grass down beside her and Shintaro tells himself _there’s no way I’m sitting down next to her_ and then he sits down next to her, because he’d be nothing if not a disappointment. Ayano pulls out a bright red bento box; Shintaro leans against the tree and does what he does best: observe. There’s a faded patch of grass lining the outskirts of the oval, and a few birds pick at some spot on the ground. There’s a few seniors kicking a ragged soccer ball between them—sometimes it flies past boundaries and this one kid is always chosen to fetch it, and Shintaro can faintly hear him saying, “I swear to god, if I have to get this goddamn ball one more goddamn time I’m going to throw it out on the road.”

It’s actually sort of peaceful out here on the oval, if not for Ayano’s nonstop chatterbox—question after question she hurls his way, which makes him kinda want to gnaw his own ears off.

“What’d you do over the weekend, Shintaro?” she says, and Shintaro’s possible options now are: _“Laid in bed all day like a house rat,”_ or _“went on exotic skiing trip with family,”_ and both make him exceedingly uncomfortable, so he knocks around for anything, _something_, he did at all and finally settles on, “Homework.”

Ayano gapes at him for a second—or he thinks she does, at least. Her mouth’s curved into this perfect little ‘O’ shape, so he’s not exactly sure how to take that.

“_Woooow_. That’s—”

“—boring,” he finishes for her, which makes Ayano’s eyes go wide, and she throws her hands up into the stratosphere.

“No, no! No, it’s cool! It’s admirable!” She beams at him. (He’s not sure how to take that, either.) “I wish I had that kind of determination…”

She’s so _nice_. It creeps him out—or it freaks him out, or both—and he _really_ doesn’t know how to take that. There’s a huge part of him asking _why_, and another part asking _how_—how he’s gone so long without talking to anyone, and then all of a sudden the first person he actually talks to ends up being a literal fucking saint. His anxiety has spent _years_ telling him people are gross and disgusting and they all think _he’s_ gross and disgusting, and then Little Miss Perfect comes along and kicks his anxiety to the fucking curb—with him strapped on and dragged along with it, all dazed and dizzy and confused. He’s not sure how to feel at all.

She’s nice, and he’s got to return the favour, even if it makes him sick to the fucking stomach. There’s not much he can do, but he asks her, “How was your weekend, then?” and the bright look she gets makes him think that maybe he might’ve done the right thing for once.

“I’m glad you asked!” Ayano says. “Well, it’s not that interesting, really. Shuuya thought it’d be funny to dry our socks on the roof and they all blew away. The Tateyama family went on a scavenger hunt for socks all weekend, basically!” She laughs, and she tugs at her scarf, and Shintaro smacks down the urge to call it cute.

“Just the socks?” he says instead.

“Yeah.” Ayano sighs, but it’s not exactly exasperation—it’s, like, fond exasperation, however that works. “He dried the others over Kousuke’s bedside table. They’re a pretty combustible duo.”

Ayano talks about all of her siblings in different ways—Tsubomi, adoring-soft; Shuuya, amused-soft; Kousuke, cheery-soft—but, in the end, it’s all the same fondness. You can tell she loves them all the same—Shintaro doesn’t get that. (Maybe that’s just how it _sounds_. People always come in rankings. Ayano must love some of them more than the others.)

In a strange, distant way, Shintaro can somewhat remember feeling like that. Back then, he and Momo would sit on the floor and play with MegaBloks together (they couldn’t afford Legos), and Momo would play as a soldier in his army, and she’d follow him wherever he went, and every time he turned around she’d giggle and say, _“Shintaronii, commander!” _and Shintaro can remember, however faintly, the feeling that possessed him into a grin. _“Momo-imouto, soldier!”_ he’d say.

If he had to be stupid enough to call anything _warm_, it’d be that. Everything seemed a bit brighter back then. A bit lighter, too. He felt like he was a part of something—loved, maybe. Somewhere, somewhere in his mind, he wants those days to come back. He wants to be able to sit back and laugh, laugh all he wanted, with a group of people—without having to feel like they’re all trying to kill him, in seven hundred different ways, inside their minds. He wants the kind of vivid world it seems like Ayano comes from—he wants to orbit around people, and for people to orbit around him.

Well, in the end, he just wants to matter, probably. Won’t fucking mind if it never happens—he doesn’t even care that much, anyway, because he’s just going to die someday and then everything will have been for nothing, and there’s no point hoping for anything because it’ll all disappear before he knows it.

_God, alright_, he thinks. _That kinda came out of nowhere_.

“So, what do you think of that?”

Shintaro looks down; Ayano looks up, through her bangs, over her lunch.

“Huh? Did you…” Did she ask him something? He wasn’t listening—he was too busy daydreaming; so, being absolutely fucking pathetic. He wasn’t even being rude for a good reason—he wasn’t pondering human existence, or solving the world’s unsolvable problems, or writing a go-green government initiative—he was _daydreaming_ about communicating with his family like a normal human being.

Ayano seems to catch hold of his panic—he hates how she does that, by the way—and she laughs and says, “Don’t worry! I’m just pulling your leg. I didn’t ask you anything. You just seemed really deep in thought, so I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

Because she knew he wouldn’t respond to a normal, _“Are you alright?”_ He doesn’t know if he’s happy or angry or what. (Why would he be angry? It just seems so instinctive.) (Is he angry by instinct? That can’t look good.) (Then again, it’s not like he looks good anyway.)

(Shut. Up.)

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says—then, a second later, “Do you… Is there anything you don’t like about your family?”

Probably not. Her home life is probably all sunshine and rainbows, and every day is as bright and warm as she is. She probably loves her family properly, with all her heart, and is never horrible enough to think the way he does, of his own family.

Amidst his thoughts, shockingly enough, Ayano says, “Yeah, well, of course,” and Shintaro kicks back the urge to sound interested.

“Huh,” he says.

“It’s nothing big,” she says, and for a second she looks like she’s got something else to say, but shakes her head instead. “But, well, you know, that’s a part of love, too, isn’t it? If you live thinking someone’s perfect, you’ll never be able to love them right.” Then she smiles at something Shintaro can’t see. “If you live thinking someone’s better than you, you’ll never be able to love yourself right.”

Shintaro tosses the words over in his mind, but he can’t really say he understands. “Huh,” he says again.

“Right?” Ayano gives this sort of breathless chuckle. “Sorry if I’m not making sense.”

He’s been staring at her for at least a small while before he even notices he’s staring.

“… No, it’s fine,” he says and rips his eyes away, and for a second he worries if he’s sounding too soft or too awkward or too nice. (Too nice?) “Thanks for answering, anyway.”

“No problemo! Thanks for asking!”

Shintaro leans back against the tree and looks out over the oval again; Ayano smiles at him and his stomach churns, but in a different way than he’s used to. He looks down at his bag, down at his lunch, and for once, he thinks he might have an appetite. 


End file.
